Tag Archives: A Hand Of Knaves

And our A Hand of Knaves submissions window is open! Check out our guidelines (for the love of all that’s holy, please read the guidelines) on our submissions page, then submit your word sorcery to knaves.anthology.csfg[at]gmail.com.

And check out our fabulous art from Shauna O’Meara. If you love it like we do, keep an eye out for our crowdfunding campaign for ways and means of scoring awesome Hand of Knaves swag featuring these images.

We are very excited to announce that CSFG will be publishing a new anthology of Australian speculative fiction in 2018!

A Hand of Knaves

Edited by Chris Large and Leife Shallcross

Rogues, thieves, pirates and ne’er-do-wells abound in speculative fiction. Sometimes heroic, sometimes villainous, often somewhere in between, rogues are as likely to steal one’s heart as one’s purse, and show little remorse while helping themselves to either.

So why do we love them? Because they’re imperfect, fallible, and even vulnerable under that carefully-maintained, world-weary exterior.

Rogues represent something we rarely see in our daily lives: ordinary people prepared to take on the “powers that be” by way of guile and subterfuge. But are they only in it for the loot, or are they – deep down – romantic at heart?

We want swashbuckling adventures brimming with humour, loot, and bad blood. Gut-wrenching dilemmas, resolved (for good or ill), by the thrust of a knife in the dark. Thoughtful stories exploring the foggy spaces between justice, and the law. Heroic deeds performed by someone with a less-than-heroic past. Magic and/or technology, combined with charm and charisma, to pull off an impossible heist. Hilarious sea shanties. Sweaty tales of betrayal and Machiavellian intrigue. We want to discover passion, righteous indignation, and the depths of one thief’s hatred of another. How far will the lure of gold, revenge, or the promise of a midnight tryst push one toward the brink of what is honourable, and that which lies beyond? What horrors await a scoundrel who goes too far?

Has this got your imagination going? Good.

Our submissions window will open in August. The full details are available on our publications page.